Furnishings

Dec 2011

Our house here at the Chicken Ranch is furnished in what some would call an “eclectic” fashion. Others might gasp at our lack of interior design savoir-faire. We don’t have matching seven piece sets or a theme. There is no Feng shui ( always sounded like a terminal disease to me). What we do have is a powerful lot of memories in the form of wood and glass.
Our bedroom for instance contains a chest of drawers and dresser brought from Ireland by my ancestors. All oak, dove-tailed and solid. You may find the bed covered in a quilt that was made by my grandma Dennie , my father-in law or someone else special to us. The bathroom contains another dresser that belonged to a great-great grandmother. Dining room furniture consist of hutches and items from Patty’s grandma and a dining room table I built a few years ago that really looks more like a gussied up work bench. Patty graciously covers it in a lace table cloth from Mexico.
My den is a collection of articles from my great-grandpa Armstrongs’ barn. Two large wooden flour barrels from early 1900 era act as end tables. Old metal store signs , deer antlers, hides and a mule collar adorn the walls. The mule collar belonged to old Sadie or Jack, mules that worked the ground on the Armstrong farm before the old 8n Ford tractor did the work, but that’s a story for another time.
So while Martha Stewart might frown at our lack of taste, I think even she would appreciate the history behind all we have. Like the oak rocking chair we have that my great-great aunt was sitting in when her son ( others suspicion her daughter in law) shot through the window to kill her. The bible she was holding deflected the bullet and killed my great-great uncle instead. Memories, joy and sorrow interwoven.
So you see, our interior items are more to us than pieces to use and then discard later on for something new. Our fixtures are, well, a lot more like family. Dec 2011